'Prison gerrymandering' shifts political power from urban people of color to rural whites in Pa. (and elsewhere)

"By counting prisoners as living in their prisons and not at their home addresses, Pennsylvania’s system for drawing political maps benefits white, rural voters at the expense of voters in urban areas, disproportionately affecting people of color, experts say," Jonathan Lai reports for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Many states have the same issue, especially since a significant number of prisons are in fairly rural areas that are mostly white and Republican, and prisoners tend to come from urban, often Democratic-led communities, and are disproportionately minorities, Ludwig Hurtado reports for NBC News.

The U.S. Census Bureau's decennial count defines someone's "usual residence" as "where a person lives and sleeps most of the time". That includes prisoners, college students, and patients at long-term medical facilities. But, unlike college students, prisoners cannot vote. Essentially, that gives the votes of white rural residents near prisons more power, Lai reports.

The practice has a 'profound impact' on Philadelphia, according to two Villanova University researchers: the city would gain one or two House districts with majority-minority populations if prisoners were counted based on their home addresses, Lai reports.